7.10.2008

We'll Meet Again

My friend and former professor, Theo Plantinga, died last week. I suspected this had happened when I noticed in the site data that someone had come to my blog by searching for his name and "obituary". He was only 61, but had prostate cancer.

I am most grateful to Theo for his frequent warmth and kindness to me, and his intellectual and moral support in my philosophical studies. He had a terribly rare kind of good humor and lack of pretense that was nevertheless full of conviction and socially refined. He was broadly and well read, and his breadth of life experience, and depth of reflection will always stand as an inspiration for me. When I was living in Amsterdam for grad school, his correspondence was a real comfort and help.

I first met Theo as my adviser in my single year at Redeemer University College in Hamilton, Ontario where I finished up my BA in philosophy in 2002-2003. I thoroughly enjoyed his courses in Asian and Aesthetic philosophy. I was happy to attend his wedding (he was a widower and married again), and help him move some things to a new place. We would often discuss ethical issues and the church.

More than once we also commiserated about institutional "officialdom," as he called it. In his last few years especially, Theo was treated shamefully by certain administrators at the college. He deserved better than that, and was an example of Christian charity and principle to the end.